Recovery method for an electric appliance

ABSTRACT

A mark is displayed to a manually scrapped component capable of being disassembled manually without disassembling or crushing by machine at the time of discard or recovery of an electric appliance after use, and the manually scrapped component is manually scrapped from a product, and in the case of crushing by machine thereafter, the mark display is a mark capable of separation into plural kinds of substance on which a cost burden is imposed and valuable substance after recovery, and scrapping can be performed easily at low cost.

TECHNICAL FIELD

This invention relates to discard of electric appliances such as usedhome electric appliances.

BACKGROUND ART

As represented by Home Electric Appliance Recycling Law enforced onApril, 2001 in Japan, by a growing interest in worldwide environment,more improvement in recycling efficiency of waste matter discharged inlarge amounts, achievement of a recycling rate which is the point ofdisposal criteria, and practice and acceleration of recycling ofproducts and members with a minimum of cost have become a large problemin disposal of home electric appliances at present. As a result of that,large improvement cannot be expected by only efficiency of recyclingpractice of home electric appliances and there is an increasing need toincorporate efficiency improvement items of recycling disposal lookingahead to the future discard time into a design stage.

Flowcharts of a conventional recycling method are shown in FIGS. 23( a)and 23(b). FIG. 23( a) is a flowchart of the general case, and when ahome electric appliance S100 was discarded S101 after the home electricappliance was used, landfill S102 was performed. In the case of previousdiscard of the home electric appliance, landfill disposal was generallyperformed. FIG. 23( b) is a flowchart of the case of passing disposalfacilities, and when a home electric appliance S200 was discarded S201,waste products are first collected S202 by public institutions,professional agencies for handling waste products, distributors of homeelectric appliances, manufacturers and so on. The collected wasteproducts are carried S203 into a recycling center. In the recyclingcenter, with improvement in recycling efficiency, disposal by a disposalagency is being performed, but under the present circumstances, crushingS204 of the products by a crushing machine and further sorting S205 ofmaterials by a sorting machine were performed and valuable substancesS206 such as iron, copper or aluminum were recovered but in plastics, asmall part of only the plastics easy to recycle was recycled S207 andthe remainder were landfilled S208 together with dust.

With respect to such plastics, a proposal for forming a character etc.showing a construction material of a component on a surface of a plasticcomponent so as to perform recycling simply has been made inJP-A-2000-233408 etc. which is a Published Unexamined Japanese PatentApplication. Further, a proposal for representing indication that it isunnecessary to disassemble a synthetic resin assembly made of the samematerial on the assembly by a symbol or a particular character has beenshown in JP-A-2000-267609 which is a Published Unexamined JapanesePatent Application. Further, the plastics have been defined asrecyclable marks by ISO14021.

In the recycling center etc, performing partial separation (done bymanual work, and hereinafter called manual scrapping work) which is aprocess before being put into a crushing machine (mechanical separation)has been advanced in recent years. Thus, in the manual scrapping workfor performing partial separation, for example, a portion for includinga large number of environmental impact substances and requiring specialdisposal, a relatively valuable portion, etc. are considered, but themanual scrapping work is done by decision of individual manufacturers orindividual recycling agencies and there is no definite criterion and thecase of a large cost burden is potentially passed up, with the resultthat a large problem arose as environmental measures. In the case thatHome Electric Appliance Recycling Law is enforced in Japan, there was aproblem that recovery cannot be made well even though the Law isenforced because only recoverable substances are recovered or relativelyvaluable substances (for example, gold) cannot be extracted and furthersubstances having a bad influence on a crushing machine are also putinto the crushing machine and thereby the bad influence is had on thecrushing machine and so on. Also, there was a problem that scheduledrecycling cannot be performed due to deformation or stain caused byhandling at the time of recovery or during long-term use even for aproduct in consideration of recycling at a point in time of design. Inthe case of Japan, in addition to efficiency of recycling practice ofhome electric appliances discharged from 2001 based on the Law of Japan,there is no criterion as to how a future recycling rate aim could bebrought to the present design products which will be discarded after tenyears and ultimately, there is no criterion for aiming at theenvironmental load minimum as the whole life cycle of the product andthere was a problem that cost of environmental measures becomes veryhigh to result in the cause of the trouble in the future. In addition,since components including environmental impact substances, componentsgenerating value and components having an influence on the crushingmachine are indefinite, disposal time to perform manual scrapping islong and further scrapping of the components having a bad influence onthe crushing machine are missed and failure of the crushing machine iscaused, so that a situation in which disposal cost necessary to performrecycling disposal increases has continued. As a result of this, therewas a problem that a large burden of the environmental measures is puton all of the manufacturers, distributors, public institutions, etc. aswell as recycling agencies and formation of recycling-oriented societyis delayed and an influence is also had on positive challenges such asaiming at high efficiency and so on.

DISCLOSURE OF THE INVENTION

An object of the invention is to improve recovery work efficiency bymaking kinds of separation clear at the time of manual scrapping workwhich is a process before being put into a crushing machine and alsoprevent failure of the crushing machine and decrease cost of recyclingdisposal. Also, an object of the invention is to implement design forfacilitating recycling or implement recycling business at low cost. Anobject of the invention is to implement product design with a highrecycling rate at low cost. An object of the invention is to implement arecyclable product free from design time and discard time or free fromplaces such as a design place and a scrapping place. Also, an object ofthe invention is to introduce a cost investment effect into recyclingbusiness such as scrapping or design in consideration of recycling of aproduct and accelerate formation of recycling-oriented society andsubstantially cheapen cost of environmental measures and returnenvironmental protection and its benefit to general consumers as well aspublic institutions.

In order to achieve the objects, a recovery method of an electricappliance of the invention comprises the steps of displaying a mark or asymbol to a manually scrapped component capable of being disassembled bya tool or manually without disassembling or crushing by machine at thetime of discard or recovery after use, scrapping the manually scrappedcomponent from a product by a tool or manually before disassembling orcrushing by machine at the time of discard or recovery after use, andcrushing the residual product by machine after scrapping the manuallyscrapped component, and display of the mark or the symbol is a mark or asymbol capable of separation into plural kinds of substance on which acost burden is imposed and valuable substance after recovery.

Also, in a mark or a symbol capable of separation into plural kinds, amark or a symbol is attached to at least any of a trouble componentdamaging a crushing machine, a trouble component including a substancecausing an obstacle to a run of a machine and a trouble componentincluding a substance having a bad influence on environment, and alsoanother mark or symbol is attached to any of a component including asubstance having recovery value and a valuable recycled component.

Also, scrapping of a manually scrapped component to which a mark or asymbol is displayed is scrapping of a component to specified scrappingorder or a component within specified time.

Also, a position of a manually scrapped component or specified scrappingorder or scrapping time in the case of scrapping the manually scrappedcomponent to which a mark or a symbol is displayed are preset and alsosetting of this set position or order or time can be changed bycommunication means or input means.

Also, a recovery method of an electric appliance comprises the steps ofpresetting and displaying plural kinds of manually scrapped componentscapable of being disassembled by a tool or manually withoutdisassembling or crushing by machine at the time of discard or recoveryafter use, scrapping the manually scrapped components from a product bya tool or manually before disassembling or crushing by machine at thetime of discard or recovery after use, and performing crushing bymachine after scrapping the manually scrapped components, and thedisplay is performed on a display device provided in an electricappliance by reading from storage means or receiving information fromthe outside through communication means.

Also, a recovery method of an electric appliance comprises the steps ofdisplaying a manually scrapped component capable of being disassembledby a tool or manually without disassembling or crushing by machine atthe time of discard or recovery after use on a preset display device,scrapping the manually scrapped component from a product by a tool ormanually before disassembling or crushing by machine at the time ofdiscard or recovery after use, and performing crushing by machine afterscrapping the manually scrapped component, and setting of display of thedisplay device can be changed by communication means or input means.

Also, a recovery method of an electric appliance comprises the steps ofsetting time for scrapping a manually scrapped component capable ofbeing disassembled by a tool or manually without disassembling orcrushing by machine at the time of discard or recovery after use,providing notification of arrival at scrapping time preset beforescrapping during scrapping of the manually scrapped component, andperforming crushing by machine after scrapping the manually scrappedcomponent, and setting of the scrapping time set can be changed bycommunication means or input means.

Also, in an electric appliance, in the case of recovering a productafter use, according to disposal of recovery, plural kinds of marks areattached to a component removed previously by a tool or manually beforecrushing by machine or are stored by different symbols in storage meansprovided in the product and the component can be distinguished fromother components.

Also, in a previously removed component of an electric appliance,accumulated transition of value of the removed component is obtainedwith respect to a lapse of time taken for removal and is compared withtime work cost of a previous removal process and thereby an objectcomponent is determined.

Also, a previously removed component of an electric appliance includes atrouble component which may cause trouble in the case of being put intoa crushing machine, or a trouble component made of raw material havingan influence on environment, or a valuable component with value ofpresence of rare metal etc., or a plastic component and also, a mark ora symbol indicating trouble is attached to the trouble component and amark or a symbol indicating value is attached to the valuable component.

Also, a plastic component among previously removed components can beremoved by the same method, for example, the same removal direction.

Also, a mark or a symbol representing recyclability and a material codeare together attached to a plastic component of an electric appliance.

Also, a mark representing recyclability of an electric appliance and amaterial code are described by a convex or concave character withrespect to a component and this convex or concave character is describedin a direction capable of reading as a correct character on the frontside of a component for an opaque component and reading as a correctcharacter on the front side of a component or a correct character on theback side of a component when viewed from the front for a transparentcomponent.

Also, in an electric appliance, an object component list of a previouslyremoved component and an instruction diagram of this manualdisassembling procedure are displayed or stored in a predetermined placeof a product or a predetermined specific component.

Also, an information system of an electric appliance comprises designinput means which can input structure design of the electric applianceand also can preset plural kinds of manually scrapped components capableof being disassembled by a tool or manually, the components beingpartial components of this structure, storage means for previouslystoring raw material unit prices of the plural manually scrappedcomponents and scrapping time every component, and display means fordisplaying accumulation of the value amounts of manually disassembledcomponents with a manual scrapping time lapse of the electric appliancefrom component information about plural components which can be manuallydisassembled and are inputted from the design input means andinformation stored in the storage means, and the design input means, thestorage means and the display means are connected through communicationmeans.

Also, in an information system of an electric appliance, in the case ofdiscarding the electric appliance, a range of a manually scrappedcomponent can be changed and also information stored can be updated.

Also, a recovery apparatus of an electric appliance comprises set valueinput means for presetting scrapping time of plural kinds of manuallyscrapped components capable of being disassembled by a tool or manuallyinside a structure of an electric appliance and also presetting thevalue amounts of the plural kinds of the manually scrapped components,calculation means for obtaining accumulation of the value amounts of theplural manually scrapped components with a scrapping time lapse of theappliance, and display means for displaying or recording to providenotification that scrapping cannot be performed within the presetscrapping time by accumulation of the value amounts every the scrappingtime lapse.

Also, a recovery apparatus of an electric appliance comprises settingmeans for presetting scrapping time for manually scrapping plural kindsof manually scrapped components capable of being disassembled by a toolor manually without disassembling or crushing by machine at the time ofdiscarding an electric appliance or recovering the electric applianceafter use, display means capable of displaying kinds, positions, countsor scrapping procedures of the manually scrapped components by readingfrom the setting means or reading from storage means provided in theelectric appliance or receiving information from the outside throughcommunication means, and timer means for measuring work time forscrapping the plural kinds of manually scrapped components displayed bythe display means and also providing notification of time of the presetscrapping time.

Also, a recovery apparatus of an electric appliance comprises time valuerecord means for recording the value amounts of manually scrappedcomponents of plural kinds preset as the accumulated amount with ascrapping time lapse.

Also, a recovery apparatus of an electric appliance comprises scrappingtime record means for recording scrapping time of manually scrappedcomponents of plural kinds preset.

Also, in a recovery apparatus of an electric appliance, setting means ordisplay means or time value record means or scrapping time record meanscan make setting or display or recording remotely through acommunication system.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

FIG. 1 is a flowchart of a recycling method according to one example ofthe invention.

FIGS. 2( a) and 2(b) are mark display explanatory diagrams according toone example of the invention.

FIGS. 3( a)-3(m) are mark display explanatory diagrams according to oneexample of the invention.

FIG. 4 is a profit and loss balance explanatory diagram of recyclingactivity according to one example of the invention.

FIG. 5 is a diagram of relation between scrapping time and a recyclingrate and scrapping cost according to one example of the invention.

FIG. 6 is a diagram of relation between scrapping time and a recyclingrate and scrapping cost according to one example of the invention.

FIG. 7 is a configuration diagram of a waste product recovery systemaccording to one example of the invention.

FIG. 8 is a flowchart of manual scrapping according to one example ofthe invention.

FIG. 9 is an explanatory diagram of a manual scrapping disposalcalculation display device according to one example of the invention.

FIG. 10 is an improvement effect explanatory diagram of valuable andinverse onerous accumulated amounts according to one example of theinvention.

FIG. 11 is a flowchart of manual scrapping evaluation according to oneexample of the invention.

FIG. 12 is a configuration diagram of recycling information processingaccording to one example of the invention.

FIG. 13 is a conceptual diagram of a room air conditioner outdoor deviceaccording to one example of the invention.

FIG. 14 is a configuration diagram of room air conditioner outdoordevice components according to one example of the invention.

FIG. 15 is a conceptual diagram of a room air conditioner indoor deviceaccording to one example of the invention.

FIG. 16 is a configuration diagram of room air conditioner indoor devicecomponents according to one example of the invention.

FIG. 17 is a configuration diagram of room air conditioner indoor devicecomponents according to one example of the invention.

FIG. 18 is a front view of a refrigerator component configurationaccording to one example of the invention.

FIG. 19 is a rear view of a refrigerator component configurationaccording to one example of the invention.

FIG. 20 is a removal explanatory diagram of refrigerator componentsaccording to one example of the invention.

FIGS. 21( a) and 21(b) are recyclable mark display explanatory diagramsaccording to one example of the invention.

FIGS. 22( a) and 22(b) are recyclable mark display explanatory diagramsaccording to one example of the invention.

FIGS. 23( a) and 23(b) are flowcharts of a conventional recyclingmethod.

BEST MODE FOR CARRYING OUT THE INVENTION

An embodiment of the invention will be described below based on theaccompanying drawings.

First Embodiment

FIG. 1 is a flowchart describing a recycling method of the invention. Itis the flowchart showing disposal in waste home electric appliancedisposal facilities such as a recycling center, and when a home electricappliance S000 is discarded S001 after the home electric appliance isused, waste products are first collected S002 by public institutionssuch as a city government, professional agencies for handling wasteproducts, distributors of home electric appliances, manufacturers andsoon. The waste products collected in a particular place etc. arecarried S003 into the recycling center. In the recycling center, astructure easy to disassemble with respect to components to bedisassembled directly manually or using a tool is previously adopted forelectric appliances such as a television, a washing machine or airconditioning equipment brought as recycled products and also, a markwhich means that this component is manually disassembled is displayed.Only this mark display component is manually disassembled S004. In thismanual disassembly, for a refrigerator, for example, a door is openedand a plastic component of interior decorations on which a mark isdisplayed is removed, or a cover of a machine room in the lower rear ofthe refrigerator is pulled off by a screwdriver etc. and a fixed screwportion of a compressor which is fixed in the inside and is specified ina manually scrapped component is destroyed by a hammer and is removed.Also, in an example of air conditioning equipment such as an airconditioner, a body etc. which is a cover of the outer periphery isdestroyed manually, or a front grill portion is removed and fixing of amanually scrapped component of the inside is removed by destruction etc.using a hammer etc. Also, display of a mark of a mark display componentis shown on the component, but as described below, the display can alsobe performed by displaying the contents of electronic data on a screento display the whole product or individual components. This manuallydisassembling work is constructed so as to measure work time by a timer.

The electric appliance such as the refrigerator after the manualdisassembly is put into a large crushing machine installed in therecycling center as it is in a state of a body in which the manuallyscrapped component is removed or in a state in which a partial componentis destroyed and disassembled is divided in plural portions, and iscrushed S005 and is chopped up into fine clusters or fragments. Thefragments are sorted S006 on a material basis, for example, iron,copper, aluminum, plastic, etc. by an air sorting machine using adifference in weight or a sorting machine for sorting by the presence orabsence of response to magnetic force and soon. Except for the manuallyscrapped components, in this sorting, classification of valuablesubstances S018 such as iron, plastics while performing cascaderecycling S019 for fuel oil etc., landfill S020 of dust or unrecoveredplastics or the like, etc. is made and useful products such as thevaluable substances are recovered.

On the other hand, in the mark display component disassembled manually,a kind of the mark is checked S007. The mark includes plural kinds ofmarks or symbols and the marks or symbols are constructed so that theycan be individually separated, respectively and in this mark or symbol,an X mark 103 is made on trouble components such as a trouble componentsuch as a difficult-to-crush component damaging a machine for crushingthe electric appliance into fragments, a trouble component including asubstance such as a permanent magnet causing an obstacle to a run of amachine, and a trouble component including a substance having a badinfluence on environment, for example, environmental endocrinedisrupters harmful to the human body. The components on which this Xmark is displayed are further classified and are assorted S008 intoindividual components. This trouble component which is a manuallyscrapped component of the X mark assorted individually requires removalalways before crushing, and has a structure easy to disassemble manuallywith respect to this component at a stage of design of the electricappliance. However, some trouble components include valuable substancescapable of earning money, and others include inverse onerousnessrequiring a cost burden to post-treatment, for example, rendering thetrouble component harmless after the classification, that is, inverseonerous substances, for example, paying cost of treatment to ask thetreatment. These are displayed by one X mark, but naturally the valuablesubstances and the inverse onerous substances may further be divided bymarks among the trouble components.

As another mark kind shown in FIG. 1, there is a component containingexpensive rare metal such as gold or a component S013 such as amicrocomputer or a special semiconductor capable of selling at a highprice, and a ⋆ mark 110 is attached to such a component containing raremetal etc. or a substrate holding board or a substrate in which thecomponent is mounted, and recovery disposal S014 of the rare metal etc.is performed. Further, as another mark, a recyclable mark 100 adopted byISO14021 is introduced. This is a component of an object of materialrecycling in which material is recovered and using this material as rawmaterial, the material is recycled to new material, and iron, copper,aluminum, etc. as described in the valuable substances S018 of FIG. 1are included and as material recycling object components from themanually scrapped components, a shelf of a refrigerator or a grill of anair conditioner, etc. targeted for plastic molded components S015 aregiven. These plastics are sorted S016 on a material kind basis andmaterial recycling S017 is performed.

In the recycling method of FIG. 1, a mark or a symbol is displayed to amanually scrapped component capable of being disassembled by a tool ormanually without disassembling or crushing by machine at the time ofdiscard or recovery after use and by performing crushing by machineafter manually scrapping this manually scrapped component, it can beseparated into plural kinds of substance on which a cost burden isimposed and valuable substance after recovery. In addition, when thismark is attached or described at a design stage, it can be constructedso that the manually scrapped component to which the mark is attachedcan be simply removed previously. For example, a plastic component of amanually scrapped marked component of a door inside a refrigerator canbe disassembled simply by lifting the plastic component upward whilepulling the plastic component to this side, and also a disassemblingprocedure for removal in order of upper components is preset.

In a mark or a symbol, by attaching a mark or a symbol to a troublecomponent damaging a crushing machine, a trouble component including asubstance causing an obstacle to a run of a machine and a troublecomponent including a substance having a bad influence on environment,an obstacle to recycling work is not caused and environment can beprotected. Further, a compressor or a motor is constructed so as to beremoved by as small manual work as possible. Also, as shown in FIG. 1,another mark or symbol is attached to a component including a substancehaving recovery value and a valuable recycled component and also thisdisassembly is constructed so as to remove the component as specifiedorder along with the trouble components. As a result of this, acomponent defined within specified time can be scrapped. Incidentally,in a marked component having recovery value, marks may be attached toall of the components scheduled to be removed by manual scrapping, butmarks are attached to a scheduled number or larger of components inwhich manual scrapping is planned, and a manual scrapping worker of therecycling center may be informed of this planned number and the plannedmanually scrapped components in another form. Another form may mean thata kind of a mark is changed or is read out of a storage element attachedto a product, or may mean a form in which a manual scrapping rangeplanned is shown by a drawing attached to a product or information isacquired by communication means and is displayed. As a result of this,in a plan idea at a point in time of design, data of preset conditionsprobably changes remarkably during an electric appliance use period ofseveral years or ten years or fifteen years. For example, it is assumedthat a price of iron or aluminum changes or the standard scrapping timeper time changes. Or, there is a situation unexpected at a point in timeof design, for example, remarkable deformation, and a recycling recoverymethod capable of flexibly coping with such a change can be obtained.

FIGS. 2( a)-2(b) and 3(a)-3(m) show display examples of various marks.FIGS. 2( a) and 2(b) are examples attaching a recyclable mark 100 of aplastic component and a material code 101 of its component incombination, and the recyclable mark 100 is described in conformancewith ISO14021 and the material code is described in conformance withISO11469. FIG. 2( a) is an example displayed on a polystyrene moldedproduct of a high impact type, and FIG. 2( b) shows the case of beingdisplayed on a polypropylene molded product. FIG. 3( a), FIG. 3( b),FIG. 3(c), FIG. 3( d) and FIG. 3( e) are marks showingdifficult-to-crush substances, and any mark may be used respectively,but a unified mark could be used with respect to a product. FIG. 3( a)is an X mark 103, and FIG. 3( b) is an idea for making meaning clear byan X CRUSH mark, and FIG. 3( c) is an idea for substituting a no-parkingmark 105, and FIG. 3( d) is a circle difficult mark 106, and FIG. 3( e)is an idea for making an X mark 107 on a crushing machine model diagram.

FIG. 3( f), FIG. 3( g), FIG. 3( h) and FIG. 3( i) are display examplesof environmental impact marks, and FIG. 3( f) is an X mark 103, and FIG.3( g) is Harmful 108 which is a word for indicating danger, and FIG. 3(h) is an idea for substituting a no-parking mark 105, and FIG. 3( i) isa pollution mark 109. FIG. 3( j), FIG. 3( k), FIG. 3( l) and FIG. 3( m)are examples of marks of components with high recovery value, forexample, rare metal, and FIG. 3( j) is a ⋆ mark 110, and FIG. 3( k) is aRARE mark 111, and FIG. 3(1) is a hexagonal mark 112, and FIG. 3 (m) isa circle gold mark. There are various mark ideas thus, and thereby aselection can be made properly when misleading display is performed dueto a pattern etc. of a mark mounting portion depending on components ofan electric appliance.

In the case of examining an easy-to-recycle product with a minimum ofcost in order to enhance environmental suitability of an electricappliance actually, there are the following problems in the case ofdesigning a product or the case of doing recovery work in the field ofrecycling. In order to solve such problems, extraction of issues at thetime of the current scrapping disposal, extraction of important pointsand unimportant points of measures and grasp of cost versus effect ofimprovement measures are required.

-   (1) The point in design structure to achieve simplification of    scrapping-   (2) Guidelines for selection of components to change material-   (3) Assessment of cost versus effect and a grasp method of recovery    effect-   (4) Assessment of correlation between recycling rate achievement and    generation disposal cost

In this case, it is necessary to tentatively decide an idea of thestandard plant in the recycling center. On the basis of that, it isnecessary to quantitatively grasp a profit and loss influence and aninfluence of easy-to-recycle design. Then, an idea for solving theproblems is described. First, it is necessary to divide cost generatedin connection with recycling, and waste substances and recyclablematerials generated by scrapping separation disposal are divided into“revenue” and “expenditure” as shown in FIG. 4. FIG. 4 is a diagramshowing a profit and loss balance of recycling activity, and substanceswhich produce value and substances which do not produce value amongsubstances generated by the scrapping separation disposal are dividedinto “valuable” and “inverse onerous” and are allocated to the revenueside and the expenditure side, respectively. As a result of this, theprofit and loss balance of recycling activity is represented in the formincluding also measure cost reflected on product cost. Incidentally, itcould be examined whether or not this measure cost is included asnecessary. A user burden amount in FIG. 4 means cost paid to discard anelectric appliance in the case of discarding the electric appliance.This results in revenue of a scrapper for scrapping the discardedappliance.

As the standard plant in the recycling center, raw material separationof crushing by machine and partial separation by manual work is assumedand both of them are selected while balancing three sets of a recyclingrate, economical efficiency and an environmental load factor. In thiscase, it is desirable to perform scrapping manually with reference to aportion requiring special disposal since large harmful substances areincluded, a relatively valuable portion and a portion having a badinfluence on a post-process of work as shown in FIG. 1. Since anevaluation method effective in assessing this cost versus effect isdevised, its method is shown in FIG. 5. FIG. 5 shows “manual scrappingprocess” by a time lapse using the axis of abscissa as “time” and theaxis of ordinate as “cost” and “recycling rate”. Two broken lines inFIG. 5 are recycling rate transition and valuable and inverse onerousaccumulated amount transition changing with advance of manual scrapping.Points in the lines show manual scrapping work every component. Further,a straight line upward to the right shows work cost necessary for manualscrapping work.

FIG. 5 shows one example and first, the recycling rate is a rate ofrecyclable weight to product weight and as shown in FIG. 5, since thereis no recovery at the beginning of manual scrapping time, a recoveryrate is low but the recovery rate increases gradually and results inabout 50 to 80%. In the case of recovering a main portion by mechanicalcrushing performed after manually scrapped components depending on akind of a product, an extremely high recycling rate cannot be obtainedfor time in manual scrapping work. Also in the accumulated amount ofrecovery components scrapped manually, destruction work etc. for takingout its component is first done and work for removing a troublecomponent to be removed is next done and this trouble component, forexample, an environmental impact substance requires cost ofdetoxification and a component including material such as vinyl chlorideof door packing requires separation treatment and, for example, it isnecessary to pay a special agency and minus cost is caused due toinverse onerousness. Then, when valuable substances are manuallydisassembled and recovered, the minus cost begins to be accumulated tothe plus side.

Manual scrapping work cost increases with time for which the workerswork based on cost of manpower necessary for manual scrapping. Parts ofother indirect cost or equipment depreciation cost, etc. as well aspersonnel cost are added to this cost and the cost may be cost per time.When it is assumed that cost per time is constant and the number ofworkers is constant, the manual scrapping work cost becomes a straightline with work time as shown by a dotted line of FIG. 5, but may becomea broken line shape etc. depending on a level of work contents or thenumber of workers. The final accumulated amount of money at the timewhen a predetermined component manually scrapped can be scrapped or atthe time of reaching predetermined time is the amount of money in whichthe scrapped component is converted into recoverable value, and thisamount probably becomes a minus as shown in the drawing or becomes aboutzero, or value probably becomes a plus. In order to balance revenue withexpenditure, even except for measure cost of a product described in FIG.4, unless the sum of the final accumulated amount and the burden amountpaid at the time of discard by a user who has used this home electricappliance discarded balances with at least expenditure such as manualscrapping work cost and other expenditure cost, success is not made asbusiness. Of course, there are various costs of business accomplishment,for example, costs of equipment or crushing work by machine as the otherexpenditure.

From the above, in the case of performing recycling business, a troublecomponent must be removed previously before crushing by machine andunless this manual scrapping work cost is covered by revenue of therecycling business, enormous cost must be spent for environmentalmeasures and environmental protection stagnates and protection of globalenvironment is delayed and consequently, remarkable loss is caused. As aresult of this, expenditure meeting revenue is required, and structuredesign of a product or equipment of the recycling business or workcontents present challenges. This basic idea is shown in a diagram ofrelation between scrapping time and a recycling rate and scrapping costof FIG. 6. FIG. 6 is a schematic diagram of FIG. 5 and first, in orderto increase a recycling rate, for an air conditioner or a refrigerator,etc., valuable substances as many as possible, for example, plasticswhich are not very useful after crushing want to be scrapped in the caseof manual disassembling before crushing by machine. However, when toolong time is taken to perform this scrapping, scrapping cost becomes toohigh and expenditure does not meet revenue. As the scrapping time isshortened, the expenditure decreases accordingly. However, it is foundthat the final accumulated amount at that time could be set to thetarget amount meeting a profit and loss balance of recycling activity,that is, a target value derived from a balance on businessaccomplishment.

When the above is put together from FIGS. 5 and 6, a completion point ofmanual scrapping work, that is, a point at which the final accumulatedamount is obtained needs to be achieved earlier and higher, that is, theamount obtained by recovery needs to be increased in a short time, andthere is the following point.

-   (1) A total value of recycling rates obtained by manual scrapping    and mechanical separation must exceed a set criterion, for example,    at least a law criterion.-   (2) Cost revenue and expenditure generated by scrapping disposal can    be seen from the amount of difference between manual scrapping work    cost and the accumulated amount. Conversely, it is necessary to    clear cost effect of recycling business, that is, a target value in    view of a balance of revenue and expenditure.-   (3) A process in which a broken line shows upwardness to the right    is a process producing value, and a downward or sideward process is    a loss process. That is, introduction of recycling equipment or    product design capable of implementing the process upward to the    right at the previous stage of manual scrapping is the point of cost    reduction.

Though the plot instance of the diagram of relation between the time andthe cost and the recycling rate as shown in FIG. 5 or FIG. 6 has beenused for description since the case of manual scrapping is essential,similar comments apply to work using equipment such as machinery. Bysuch one chart, a problem of cost effect on scrapping separation havingan object product can be seen visually, so that firstly, a target to puteffort into improvement becomes clear at a design stage and also costinvested in taking measures and balance improvement which is its effectcan be evaluated. For example, when there are a three-dimensional CAD ofproduct design and a personal computer capable of calculating anddisplaying this chart at the design stage, easy-to-recycle design andproduct design effective in recycling business while satisfyingenvironmental protection measures simply can be implemented at low cost.Secondly, it can be decided whether or not work has been done as shownby set information about scrapping time and scrapped components whichare information acquired previously on the basis of this chart in thefield of the recycling business, that is, the scrapping work field.Based on this decision, a balance of the recycling business can bechecked and also measures against the case of causing loss can be takenquickly and also when measures against the case that work has not beendone as shown by the chart are taken previously at the design stage,flexible scrapping work capable of satisfying cost versus effect canalso be done.

By the above idea, a problem on scrapping separation having an objectproduct can be seen visually, so that a target to put effort intoimprovement becomes clear at a design stage and also it can be evaluatedwhether or not cost invested in taking measures meets balanceimprovement obtained by scrapping separation improvement. As a result ofthis, recycling disposal cost can be decreased by the following meansetc., and cost and effect of recycling business improve. That is, in thecase of recovering and recycling a home electric appliance, a mark isattached to a previously removed component and the component isdistinguished from another component and thereby a worker can make avisual check directly and can do work quickly. In this previouslyremoved component, accumulated transition of value of the removedcomponent is shown with respect to a lapse of time taken for removal andis compared with time work cost of a previous removal process andthereby an object component is determined, so that necessary scrappingwork can be done in necessary time and occurrence of useless time can beprevented. The previously removed component includes a component whichmay cause trouble in the case of being put into a crushing machine, anda possibility of causing an equipment failure is eliminated. Thepreviously removed component includes a component made of raw materialhaving an influence on environment, and a problem on globalenvironmental protection is not caused. The previously removed componentincludes a component having rare metal, and the amount of moneyrecovered can be increased. The previously removed component includes aplastic molded component in which material recycling is performed. Allof the plastic molded components in which material recycling isperformed can be removed by the same method, so that work time can beshortened. A raw material of the plastic molded component in whichmaterial recycling is performed is any of polypropylene, polystyrene,high impact type modified polystyrene andacrylonitrile-butadiene-styrene copolymer, and is easy to recycle. Amark representing recyclability and a material code are togetherattached to the plastic molded component in which material recycling isperformed, and the plastic molded component is easy to find and aspeedup in separation is achieved. The material code is easy to see bydisplaying the material code in the vicinity of the recyclable mark orin a position axisymmetrical to the recyclable mark, so that work isdone quickly. The mark representing recyclability and the material codeare described by a convex character with respect to a component and areeasy to find even after long-term use and work is done quickly. Theconvex character of the mark representing recyclability and the materialcode is described in a direction capable of reading as a correctcharacter on the front side of a component for an opaque component andreading as a correct character on the back side of a component whenviewed from the front for a transparent component, and is easy to findand work is done quickly. An object component list of the previouslyremoved component or an instruction diagram of a disassembling procedureis explicitly shown in a predetermined place of a product or apredetermined specific component and, for example, work is facilitated.

FIGS. 7 to 10 are diagrams explaining a recovery apparatus and arecovery method in a waste product recovery factory which is the fieldof recycling business. FIG. 7 is a diagram explaining a configuration ofthe whole system including the waste product recovery factory and inFIG. 7, numeral 120 is a research company for acquiring the latest datasuch as material prices and communicating with necessary departmentsetc., and research results are put together by a display device 121, apersonal computer body 122, an input device 123, etc. and aretransmitted by a communication device 124. This communication is relayedby an antenna 126 of a communication station 125 and is transmitted.Numeral 130 is a mother factory of an electric appliance, and theelectric appliance is designed and manufactured and also data of theappliances manufactured in the past is stored. Also in this factory 130,databases 132, 133 for storing a large number of data such as drawingstogether with a display device 134 connected to a communication device131, an arithmetic storage device 135, an input device 136, a displaydevice 137, a three-dimensional CAD device 138 for creating a designdrawing and making structure examination, weight calculation, costcalculation, etc., a design drawing input device 139, a drawing outputdevice 160, etc. are connected and are used for communication etc. withremote related departments and many affairs within the mother factory.Numeral 141 is crushing equipment which performs mechanical disassemblyand is provided in a recovery factory 140 for disassembling andrecovering a waste product 142, and numeral 144 is a personal computerbody which is provided in the manual disassembling field andintercommunicates with a reading device 148 for reading information (forexample, which portion is manually disassembled and what material isincluded, etc.) about this waste product from a display device 143, aninput device 145 and a storage medium attached to the waste product 142and is used for scrapping work.

FIG. 7 explains a system about recycling, and the recovery factory 140receives a waste product, and carries out valuable substances or dust,and also receives data about the waste product or prices of rawmaterials after the latest scrapping necessary for recycling businesssuch as scrapping or factory management from the outside throughcommunication, and does work. FIG. 8 is a flowchart describing aprocedure of an operation of this recycling system. When a waste productis installed in a manual disassembling place and a start is made S030,display S031 of a mark of each component of the waste product 142 ischecked and manual scrapping timing is turned on. A start of this timingmay be turned on by detecting a state in which the waste product is setin a predetermined position or by turning on a switch of a scrappingwork start. The start of the timing may be turned on at the time whenthe personal computer body 144 reads information from a storage medium147, such as a storage element attached to the product and other thanthe mark mounted on the component through the reading device 148 anddisplays the information on the display device 143. Or, the time whenproduct specifications such as a product code or a product number of thewaste product 142 are inputted to the input device 145 and are stored inthe personal computer body 144 or are used for communication with themother factory may be used as the start time.

This manual scrapping timing is turned off S033 at the completion ofmanual scrapping. In a refrigerator etc. which is a waste product,manually disassembled valuable substances or trouble components areremoved and the refrigerator is put into crushing equipment as it is andis fragmented. The manual scrapping time is displayed S034 on thedisplay device 143 as it is and also the accumulated amount of money canbe calculated and displayed by inputting the disassembled and recoveredcomponents. If product use is inputted, the time and the accumulatedamount are automatically displayed or stored S034 so that display can beperformed during a process in which the standard scrapping procedureadvances. In this case, preset conditions or object product conditionssuch as product use are inputted S035. The accumulated amount and thescrapping time are compared S036 with target values by an arithmeticprocessing device inside the personal computer body 144 and it isdecided whether scrapping is performed within target time and a targetaccumulated amount can be attained, or whether any one of the targetvalues cannot be attained, or whether both of the target values cannotbe attained. When a measured value or a calculated value clears thetarget, then disposal of the next waste product is taken up and it againstarts from display S031 of a mark by inputting product specifications,for example, the fact that a waste product is a refrigerator.

In the case of being in a state in which any one of the target valuescannot be attained, for example, the accumulated amount of theaccumulated recovery products is lacking or the scrapping time exceeds aschedule, arithmetic processing S038 of review of a position or a countof a component to which a mark or a symbol is attached is performed sothat the target values can be reached by an arithmetic processingportion inside the personal computer body 144 and the review isdisplayed on the display device. This arithmetic processing includesreview of a position or a count of a valuable component scrapped, anddata for performing simulation and arithmetic processing of time and theamount of money by this review may be inputted from the input device145, or may be fetched from a storage portion inside the personalcomputer or the storage medium 147 or the databases 132, 133 etc. of themother factory 130. With respect to predetermined components displayedon the display device as these data before manual scrapping, marks areattached to components larger than the predetermined components or thecomponents are stored and from among the components, a count and aposition of a manually scrapped component of said product are newlyreviewed and the contents of manual scrapping disposal capable ofattaining a target value, for example, scrapping time is calculated infavor of keeping a predetermined range and then, a scrapping procedure,time or an object component which is a valuable substance at the time ofscrapping disposal of this product are reviewed.

By a decision S039 as to whether or not the accumulated amount and thescrapping time reviewed and simulated are within the target values, whenthe target values are satisfied, a manual scrapping range and scrappingtime are reset S043 with respect to said product. Further, in the caseof measuring and deciding a situation in which the accumulated amount ofthe recovery products is lacking and also the scrapping time exceeds aschedule and there is a problem with recycling business, a preliminaryscrapping procedure idea read from the database of the mother factory ora medium such as the storage element attached to the product isdisplayed and from the amount of money and time in which this procedureidea is simulated, an examination for reviewing scrapping disposal ofscrapping is made. By performing display on the display device, makingpreparation previously or knowing data at the time of manufacturethrough communication, review of components to which marks etc. areattached, review of a scrapping procedure, etc. can be made based onsuch an examination result, so that such an exceptional examination onsurvival of the business can be made speedily before loss runs up. Insteps S037, S038 and S039, a count, a position, a procedure, etc. of amanually scrapped component are reviewed and as a result of simulation,when it is decided that a target is not reached, resetting S043 is madeby another review S038 unless this difference is a numeric value toomuch deviating from a predetermined range S041 which is a limit allowedin the case of doing recycling business.

However, when this difference is large, data is stored S042 and furthera detailed examination or simulation is performed for arrangement with amanufacture department or arrangement with a waste product recoverydepartment. Incidentally, when attachment of a mark or a symbol to awaste product is limited to a manually scrapped component, the contentsdisplayed in step 036 are analyzed and are reported to a departmentrelated to affairs of scrapping business or recycling business andimprovement can be made.

FIG. 9 is a diagram explaining a personal computer device for performingprocessing of display, storage, calculation, etc. inside a recoveryfactory, and as condition input, there are basic data such as acomponent name, raw material information and weight of a manuallyscrapped component and the scrapping conditions, for example, adifficult-to-crush substance, rare metal content, etc. and these may beinputted from an input device 145 or may be read from data stored inanother storage device previously. Similarly, as preset conditions,valuable amounts of raw materials, standard scrapping time everycomponent, standard scrapping cost per time, a product standardscrapping procedure, a component name, etc. are stored and set. Whenspecifications of a waste product are inputted, these are displayed andwhen standard work is done as this procedure, only a lapse of time and astructure of the waste product are displayed and a result as to whetherto be within a target value after the completion of manual scrapping isshown by time and is outputted as arithmetic processing data and becomesa first target value. However, the preset conditions may be modified byinformation from a research company etc. through communication inresponse to variations in the trade market in the world. A result inwhich the product specifications and other conditions are inputted andthe preset conditions are read from a storage device and are calculatedis stored and displayed and also is compared with preset scrapping time.However, in the case that a value preset by the preset conditions etc.does not match during product use or calculated data does not matchthough a change is made by input on the way, or for improvement inprofit and loss of recycling business, a count, a position and aprocedure of a manually scrapped component are improved and data ischanged by input including the procedure and scrapping is newlysimulated and the recovery amount of money and scrapping time which arethis result are displayed S034. The time and the amount of money arecompared S036 with measured time as a second target value.

FIG. 10 is an example in which an arithmetic processing result in whichmanual scrapping work cost and the recovery accumulated amount with alapse of manual scrapping time are obtained based on the data at a pointin time of product manufacture previously is used as a conventionalresult and a simulation result obtained after preset conditions arereviewed and scrapping procedures or scrapped components are reviewed toimprove profit and loss is used as a result after improvement and bothresults are compared and displayed on a display device. The finalaccumulated amount 400 is not improved too remarkably, but scrappingtime is shortened and is achieved earlier.

FIGS. 11 and 12 are explanatory diagrams for performing environmentalsuitable type product development using a recycling-capable designsupport tool in an electric appliance mother factory. An electricappliance mother factory 130 is provided with many processing devicessuch as databases 132, 133, an arithmetic processing device 134 and adisplay device 137. FIG. 8 is a flowchart for performingrecycling-capable design by these processing devices, and FIG. 9 is anexplanatory diagram of devices for performing the processing. In thedrawing, an arithmetic storage device 135 for performingrecycling-capable support has a display device 134 and an input device136 and also is connected to a three-dimensional CAD body 139 through acommunication line 161. This three-dimensional CAD body 138 is connectedto the display device 137 and a design input device 139, and creates adesign drawing while examining a product structure. Further, a rawmaterial or specific gravity can be inputted to calculate weight of acomponent whose size is set.

Next, FIGS. 13 and 14 will be described. In S050 of FIG. 11, while usingarithmetic processing of the three-dimensional CAD body 138 and viewingthe display device 137, a shape is inputted by the design input device139 and air conditioner structure design is performed and based on this,recycling disposal of a room air conditioner is described by way ofexample. FIG. 13 is a diagram showing an outline of a configuration ofan outdoor device. Also, an exploded structure of this outdoor deviceand each component name are shown in FIG. 14. As shown in FIG. 13,numeral 16 is an outdoor electric product box which is provided in theupper portion of a compressor 5 inside an outdoor device 20 and slidablymounts an outdoor control board equipped with a microcomputer etc.Numeral 18 is a fan rotated and driven by a motor 19. Also, as shown inFIG. 14, in the outdoor device 20, an outer enclosure is formed by afront cover 2 made of iron, a base 3, a back panel 9 and a top panel 14,and each the panel can be disassembled manually using a tool. Further, afan cover 1, a service panel 8 and a condenser net 12 in which materialis unified by, for example, polypropylene which is plastic are mountedin each this panel.

The compressor 5 mainly comprising copper alloy etc., stop valves 6, 7,a pipe assembly 10 are included in the inside of the outdoor device 20,and space among a machine room for assembling a four-way valve, a motorsupport for supporting a motor fan and a ventilation room for placing aheat exchanger is partitioned by a separator made of iron. When a pawlportion hooked and engaged among the top panel 14, the front cover 2 andthe back panel 9 is removed in this structure, the outer enclosure isreleased and the inside becomes bare.

As valuable substances recyclable in the room air conditioner outdoordevice 20, there are the fan cover 1, the front cover 2, the base 3, theseparator 4, the stop valves 6, 7, the service panel 8, the condensernet 12, the motor support 13, the top panel 14, the heat exchanger 15and soon. A recycling code 100 is attached to these as described in FIG.14. Also, as a substance including an environmental impact substance, anoutdoor control board 17 includes lead, so that an X mark 103 indicatinga substance having a bad influence on environment is inscribed on theoutdoor control board 17, and further a ⋆ mark 110 indicating that raremetal is contained is inscribed on a microcomputer portion on theoutdoor control board. Further, the compressor 5 and the motor 19 towhich a recycling code 100 is attached have recyclable material and alsoinclude a magnetic substance. Because of that, when the magneticsubstance is put into a crushing machine, the magnetic substance crushedadheres to a crushing and sorting line and causes an obstacle, so thatan X mark 103 indicating that it cannot be put into the crushing machinepreviously is inscribed. As shown in S051 of FIG. 11, there are manycomponents other than the above and the X mark 103 is attached totrouble components where possible, but a mark 100 indicating recyclingis inscribed on only substances producing value by performing scrappingdisposal and, for example, recycling display is not performed in thecase of deciding that scrapping work is difficult and work cost is high,and in view of these, a manual scrapping procedure is examined at adesign stage and scrapping time based on this procedure is examined anda decision on a kind of a mark attached and a decision as to whether ornot to attach a mark are made. This stage is set to i=0. The work isdone while viewing the display device 137 by three-dimensional CADthrough information inputted from the input device 139 or the database133, etc.

Next, calculation of recycling cost is processed by the arithmeticstorage device 135 based on drawing data in which structure design isperformed by the three-dimensional CAD body 138. First, condition inputS052 of design specifications such as raw material information, weight,difficult-to-crush substance information, rare metal content of variousmark attachment components examined and obtained at the design stagesS050, S051 is done through the communication line 161 or from the inputdevice 136, and (1) valuable and inverse onerous expected unit priceevery separation material, (2) standard scrapping time every component,(3) unit price per separation work time, (4) product standard scrappingprocedure, etc. are read S053 from the database 132 as set conditionspreviously. Based on these, accumulated transition of the accumulatedamount of recovery components with a lapse of manual scrapping time iscalculated S054 and calculated results of the valuable amount, theinverse onerous amount, the manual scrapping time and the total cost aredisplayed on the display device 134 as shown by an example of FIG. 5etc. A difference between the case that recycling is performed everyeach component in this calculation and the case that recycling is notperformed is obtained and by deciding S055 whether or not theaccumulated amount within preset time reaches a target, it is decidedwhether or not the above recycling disposal is performed. In this case,the accumulated amount and predetermined time which are obtained byexperiment etc. and are a target of attainment of profit and loss ofrecycling business are preset.

If the accumulated amount within the set predetermined time with respectto recovery components reaches the target, work time capable ofimproving profit and loss by further shortening manual scrapping time isexamined S056. However, if the accumulated amount does not reach thetarget in S055, a flag i is changed S062, S061 and a count, quantity ofmanually scrapped components are added S058 or a scrapping procedure ortime is changed or a structure drawing is changed S060 and also usingthe input device 139, the calculations are repeated. Also, until thework time is minimized, review in S056 can be done. After the work inrecycling design, a drawing is completed S057 and a product ismanufactured based on this drawing. Incidentally, the scrapping timechanged can be examined to the range in which plural times are presetand variations in a unit price or equipment updating, etc. areaccommodated and the best possible profit and loss balance is obtained.

The chart shown in FIG. 5 or FIG. 10 displayed by the display device 134thus is a diagram in which the axis of abscissa is elapsed time ofmanual scrapping work and the axis of ordinate is the plus and minusamounts of money produced from recovery components and the amount ofmoney accumulated with time according to a scrapping procedure idea isplotted. As a result of this, it can be decided whether or not arecycling rate recovered as recycling business exceeds a criterion oflaw etc., and whether or not a cost balance generated in this portion ofscrapping disposal is within a target by the amount of differencebetween manual scrapping work cost and the accumulated amount. Thisdecision can also be made on the display device or decision processingin which comparison is numerically made within the arithmetic storagedevice 135 may be performed. By using an evaluation device as describedin FIG. 12, that is, a process in which a broken line shows upwardnessto the right is a process producing value and a downward or sidewardprocess is a process causing loss, so that by examining a manualscrapping procedure of an object product or a count, a kind ofcomponents scrapped and recovered while viewing this, a target to puteffort into improvement in recycling profit and loss becomes clearvisually at a design stage. As a result of this, balance improvement canbe obtained simply, that is, from an earlier and higher viewpoint, andproduct design in which recycling business is successfully achieved fromprofit and loss and cost invested can be performed.

Incidentally, various data fed back from a recycling business departmentor design drawings in consideration of recycling examined by a designdepartment are stored in the databases 132, 133 and are read out asnecessary. For example, material structure cost every component obtainedfrom the design drawings, a manual scrapping procedure from scrappingexperiment etc., necessary time, or instructions by a definition of amanual scrapping object final process in which manual scrapping andmechanical crushing are divided and in a portion manually removedfinally, disposal costs before and after this portion are different,etc. are inputted from the design department. On the other hand, aseparation yield rate every material at the time of scrapping disposaldepending on separation performance of crushing equipment etc. by amachine installed, valuable and inverse onerous expected unit priceevery separation material, or unit price per time of separation workdepending on an equipment operating rate or personnel cost of recyclingbusiness, etc. are inputted by the recycling department. These inputsfrom the recycling department are done every time changes are made in anactual operating state, and the database with higher accuracy can beused. Also as mentioned above, a price etc. of material may acquireinformation from another department. By these systems, even when thereare long-term blanks in which general consumers use a product, or evenwhen there are various kinds of products and also new design isperformed every year and new functions or capabilities are added to astructure material of a component year after year, an apparatus or atechnique based on a basic principle can be applied to separationperformance of scrapping, so that an environmental suitable product canbe produced and recovered at low cost in the design department and therecycling field. That is, in favor of trouble components etc. having aninfluence on environment, a manually scrapped portion and a mechanicallycrushed portion are utilized for environmental protection, and a rangeof this manual and mechanical scrapping is divided by a profit and lossbalance and in a manual scrapping process, using the chart for makingthe recovery amount of money higher and scrapping time earlier, designand recovery can be performed and the business is successfully achievedand can be returned to consumers and is utilized for formation ofrecycling-oriented society and further using communication lines etc.,an effective database is built and this database can be maintained tothe latest data always, so that it is freed from time obsolescence orconstraints.

Next, in this outdoor device 20, a state of the recycling field will bedescribed. A room air conditioner discarded (S001 of FIG. 1) iscollected (S002 of FIG. 1) by a collector and the collector carries theroom air conditioner into a recycling disposal center (S003 of FIG. 1)and then, before a process of a crushing machine is done, it is checkedwhether or not an X mark 103 of an environmental impact substance or adifficult-to-crush substance, etc. is displayed, and a marked componentis manually scrapped (S004 of FIG. 1). Then, a flow to disposal by thecrushing machine from the manual scrapping of this outdoor device willbe described. First, the service panel 8 is opened, andchlorofluorocarbon which is an environmental impact substance isrecovered. Next, when the top panel 14 and the front cover 2 are opened,manual work items are previously displayed on a back surface and theitems for disposal are configured so as to see easily and separationwork is done according to kinds of the display (S007 and S008 of FIG.1). Work for removing the motor 19 and the compressor 5 causing anobstacle to the crushing machine in the case of being put into thecrushing machine is done by destroying fixed portions manually. Further,the electric product box 16 including an environmental impact substanceis slid and removed. In the case of removing the electric product box16, a mark 103 indicating that the environmental impact substance isincluded is inscribed on the outdoor control board 17 and a mark 110indicating rare metal is used is inscribed on the microcomputer portion.In the outdoor board, only the microcomputer is removed by cutting leadwires and thereafter, proper disposal is performed at cost so as not tohave an influence on environment. The recyclable front cover 1 otherthan the service panel 8, the top panel 14, the front cover 2, thecompressor 5, the motor 19 and the microcomputer recovered as valuablesubstances is manually scrapped and as a result of that, the valuableamount is produced. Via the manual scrapping process described above,the other components are put into the crushing machine used in the finalprocess (S005 of FIG. 1). The outdoor device residual portions after themanual disassembling process are put into the crushing machine one byone as they are. In the outdoor device crushed by the crushing machine,raw materials are sorted by a sorting machine and material can be takenout every raw material and the raw materials are recycled (S006 of FIG.1). When the outdoor device attempts to be manually scrapped in ashorter time, the top panel 14 is first removed and the front cover 2 isremoved. Next, the fan cover 1 is removed and the fan motor 19 isremoved. Then, the outdoor control board 17 is removed from the electricproduct box and thereafter, the compressor 5 could be removed bydestroying fixation. Incidentally, after the front cover, the board 17and the compressor 5 are previously removed and thereafter, the fancover 1 and the fan motor 19 may be removed.

A diagram showing of a configuration of an indoor device is shown inFIG. 15 and also, names of each component are shown in further detail inFIGS. 16 and 17. An outer enclosure portion of an indoor device 60 isformed by plastics of a box 21, a front panel 22, a decoration cover 23,a screw cap 24, a corner box 26, an air filter 27 and so on. Numeral 25is a mounting plate made of iron. A recycling code is attached to theabove components except the air filter 27. In the case of removing theouter enclosure portion, many inner components can be seen as shown inFIG. 17. In a table of FIG. 17, the components and the names are writtenand indication as to whether or not the components are valuablesubstances is written by a mark 100 and difficult-to-crush substancesare written by a mark 103. A position and a procedure of a manuallyscrapped component are displayed on a back surface of this outerenclosure portion removed first. However, information such as thisscrapping procedure may be acquired by a record medium or communicationseparately as described already. As shown in FIG. 17, recycling codesare attached to a nozzle 31, a vane 32, a vane motor 33, a power sourcecord 34, a motor band 35, an electric product cover 36, a lightreceiving board holder 37, a board cover 38, a terminal plate cover 42,an electric product box 43, a board box 44, a motor cover 45, a fanmotor 48, a heat exchanger 53, unions 54, 56, and copper pipes 55, 57.In the case of the indoor device, as a scrapping procedure in a shorttime, the front panel 22 is removed and the electric product box 43 isremoved or an indoor control board 39 is removed from this box.Subsequently, the nozzle 31 and the fan motor 48 are removed.

A plastic material is used in the box 21, the front panel 22, etc.forming the outer enclosure of the room air conditioner indoor device60, and the box 21, the front panel 22, etc. are first scrapped manuallyand are valuable substances and recyclable marks 100 are inscribed.Also, a coating for the purpose of improving appearance is applied tothis front panel 22 and a plastic material to which the coating isapplied cannot be recycled generally, but a coating material usingrecyclable thermoplastic resin is used herein and a mark including amaterial code is inscribed so that recyclability becomes apparent to adisposer. As a substance including an environmental impact substance, amark indicating the environmental impact substance is included isinscribed on a control board 31 which is a component using lead and adrain hose 29 using vinyl chloride. Further, as a substance which cannotbe put into a crushing machine, a mark is inscribed on the fan motor 48including a magnetic substance and also a nozzle 31 portion is mainly aplastic material and is recyclable, but is formed of plural materials ofa foam polystyrene, insulation or a rubber material for the purpose ofthermal insulation, and further a sticking plate is stuck and disposalcost to separate only a recyclable substance increases, so that disposalis performed as a trouble substance which cannot be put into thecrushing machine. Further, as a substance including rare metal, displayis performed to a microcomputer portion on a board 39. By performing themanual scrapping disposal as described above, the display is performedto only the valuable substances and the display is not performed tosubstances decided that scrapping work is difficult and work cost ishigh in the scrapping work by the above idea. These decide whether ornot to attach a mark and a kind of a mark attached at a design stage.The decision as to whether or not to attach a mark is similar to that ofan example in the outdoor device described above, so that description isomitted.

Next, a flow to disposal by a crushing machine from the manual scrappingof the indoor device of the room air conditioner will be described. Whenthe front panel 22 is opened, a mark 100 indicating a recyclablecomponent is inscribed on the front panel 22 and the valuable amount isreturned by removing the front panel 22. It is constructed so that theother components are also marked with manual work items such as troublecomponents or valuable substances and the items for disposal are easy tosee. Next, the electric product box 43 including an environmental impactsubstance is removed. At this time, in a manner similar to the outdoorcontrol board 17 when the electric product box 43 is removed, a mark 103indicating that the environmental impact substance is included isinscribed and a mark 110 indicating rare metal is used is inscribed on amicrocomputer portion. At this time, in the indoor control board 31,only a microcomputer is removed and then disposal is performed at costas the environmental impact substance. Thereafter, removal work of themotor 48 causing an obstacle to the crushing machine in the case ofbeing put into the crushing machine is done. Via the manual scrappingdisposal described above, it is put into the crushing machine used inthe final process (S005 of FIG. 1). The indoor device residual portionsafter the manual disassembling process are put into the crushing machineone by one as they are. In the indoor device crushed by the crushingmachine, raw materials are sorted by a sorting machine and material canbe taken out every raw material and the raw materials are recycled (S006of FIG. 1).

As described above, the recyclable component, the component which cannotbe put into the crushing machine, and the components including theenvironmental impact substance, the rare substance, etc. are explicitlyshown previously and the contents in the manual work process are clearand efficiency of recycling disposal can be improved. Also, as shown inFIGS. 14 and 17, the recycling marks 100 could be attached to manycomponents in the range capable of manual scrapping. However, actualscrapping for scrapping complicated products or many components isdesirably performed according to a scrapping procedure specified. Thescrapping procedure is displayed to a product or is stored in a storageelement etc. mounted in the product, or information etc. obtained bycommunication in the recycling field can be displayed on a displaydevice 143. In this case, preference is given to description of thescrapping procedure and components described in the procedure aremanually removed preferentially except the case of being changed later.However, in a product in which a scrapping place is clear and aprocedure is not important, for example, a small electric appliance oran air conditioner outdoor device with few components removed manually,etc., work for removing marked components may be done within manualscrapping time set. In this case, the time is the highest priority andwhen the time exceeds a predetermined time, even components markedexcept a trouble mark are not removed. By adopting such a recoverymethod, division between manual and mechanical work is obeyed by themanual scrapping time and profit and loss are secured. However, in casethat recovery equipment by mechanical crushing is insufficient or cannotbe used due to failure etc., constraint of the manual scrapping time isremoved and the marked components are recovered as many as possible andthereby the accumulated amount of money can be increased.

Next, recycling disposal of a refrigerator will be described in FIGS. 18and 19. FIG. 18 shows a configuration of a refrigerator of a four-doortype viewed from the front. An upper refrigerator room 200 has a rotarydoor 210 and door pockets 211 made of plastic are installed therein.Also, within the refrigerator, plastic shelves 220 for partitioning theinside of this refrigerator are fixed and in the back, a cold airpassage component 221 for cold air distribution is fixed by screws 222.Also, three rooms of the lower portion are stockrooms 240 having pulloutdoors 230. Within the stockroom 240, a food receiving case 250 isinstalled on a frame (not shown) fixed in the pullout door and the case250 is moved with opening and closing of the door. In order to keepintimate contact with a body at the time of closing the door, doorpacking 260 is installed on the periphery of each the door.

FIG. 19 shows the refrigerator viewed from the back. In a lower machineroom 270, there are a transverse compressor 273 forming a refrigeratingcycle, and refrigerant piping 274 in which a heat exchanger etc. placedamong this compressor, an outer box of the refrigerator and each theroom are connected and a refrigerant for cooling each of the rooms ofthe refrigerator flows. There is an electronic control board 281 in anupper electric product box 280, and a microcomputer 282 of the centerperforms centralized control. In the refrigerator of the configurationdescribed above, there are the inside plastic shelves 220, the doorpockets 211, the food stock case 250 within the pullout door, the coldair passage component 221 without adhesion of seal material, etc. asrecyclable components. These components manually scrapped arerespectively formed of the same kind of material and even in case ofattaching another kind of component, it is constructed so that the sameplastic material is used and there is no need for the separation. Forexample, transparent and cheap PS (polystyrene) is used in the insideplastic shelves 220 and the door pockets 211, and the food stock case250 within the pullout door or the cold air passage component 221, etc.are unified into PP (polypropylene) with light weight and high impact,and they are integrated as recyclable general-purpose plastics. Forseparation at the time of manual scrapping, marks 100 indicatingrecyclable components and material codes are together attached to thesecomponents.

Also, as a substance including an environmental impact substance in therefrigerator, there is the electronic control board 281 and thisincludes lead, so that an X mark 103 indicating that the environmentalimpact substance is used is inscribed. Further, a magnetic substance isincluded in the compressor 273 and the door packing 260 on the doorperiphery, so that an X mark 103 indicating that a substance whichcannot be put into a crushing machine is included is inscribed. Also,the electronic board 281 is equipped with the microcomputer 282 and a ⋆mark 100 is inscribed on this component. In a large-scale product suchas the refrigerator, effort to merely carry the large-scale product orchange a turn is taken and the large-scale product is heavy, so thatmanpower is avoided and the large-scale product is often carried by amachine such as a crane. A procedure for scrapping a refrigerator whichis such a large-scale electric appliance in a short time will bedescribed. First, a machine room cover 271 of the back is first scrappedmanually and chlorofluorocarbon is removed and then the compressor 273is removed. For removal, the machine such as a crane can be usedeffectively. Next, a component present in the back, for example, theboard 281 could be scrapped manually. After the back side, the frontside, for example, a door is opened and the inside shelves 220 aremanually removed and then the door pockets are removed and the case 250within the pullout door is removed. Then, a door gasket 260 is removed.However, in the case that the procedure is changed and more componentsare manually scrapped in a shorter time, after the back side isscrapped, the gasket 260 is first removed and plastics are removed fromthe shelves using the remaining time.

A flow to disposal by a crushing machine from manual scrapping of therefrigerator will be described. First, the machine room cover 271 of thelower back is removed. When the machine room cover is opened, a manualwork item list or FIG. 272 is previously displayed on a back surface ofthis cover and it is constructed so that items for disposal are easy tosee. Chlorofluorocarbon which is an environmental impact substance isfirst recovered there. In a manner similar to the air conditioner,disposal of the chlorofluorocarbon is performed by a special disposerafter the recovery, so that it results in inverse onerousness. That is,the chlorofluorocarbon recovery has work cost and the inverse onerousamount is added after the recovery. Further, the compressor 273 causingan obstacle to the crushing machine in the case of being put into thecrushing machine is removed. Then, the electronic control board 281including an environmental impact substance is removed from the electricproduct box 280 present in the upper portion of the machine room. Sincethere is the microcomputer 282 to which a mark indicating rare metal isused is attached on the board, only this microcomputer is removed andthe remainder is disposed of at cost so as not to have a bad influenceon environment.

The inside of the refrigerator of the front side is manually scrapped.When the rotary door 210 of the upper refrigerator room is opened, thepockets 211 in which recyclable marks are inscribed on the sides arepresent in a door portion and all of these pockets can be lifted upwardand removed. All the same removal methods are vary useful in efficiencyof work at the time of manual scrapping. Marks indicating recyclablecomponents are also inscribed on the plastic shelves 220 inside the doorand all of these shelves can be pulled out forward and removed. Thisremoval method is shown in FIG. 20. As shown in FIG. 20, the door pocket211 is manually lifted upward and removed. Also, the inside plasticshelf 220 is lifted upward and removed. The food stock case 250 islifted upward and removed after the pullout door 230 is pulled out. Inmanually scrapped components, materials are unified into, for example,PS every component, respectively, so that the same material is separatedtogether and is carried in a plastic special recycling factory as thesame general-purpose plastics and is recycled as recycled plastics andthereby is disposed of as value.

Next, a mark indicating a recyclable component is also inscribed on thecold air passage component 221 present in the back of the refrigeratorroom. This component is generally fastened by the screws 222 and inconsideration of the time of scrapping, it is simply configured so thatnotches 223 are provided in the circumferences of the screw portions andremoval can be performed by only pulling off the screws 222 withoutremoving the screws at the time of manual scrapping. Also, in such acold air passage component 221, generally, there are often cases thatseal materials are stuck for prevention of cold air leakage, but whenplastics are recycled, these seal materials result in mixture of foreignmatter and cause a large obstacle to recycling, so that in a recyclablemark, attachment of the mark 100 needs to be limited to componentswithout sticking of such seal materials. The flow proceeds to thepullout door 230. When the pullout doors 230 are opened, there are thefood stock cases 250, respectively. Since recyclable marks are alsoinscribed on these, all are lifted upward and removed. Also, in thesecomponents, materials are unified into PP, so that the same material isseparated together and is recycled as recycled plastics and is disposedof as value in a manner similar to PS. After manual scrapping of thecomponents inside the refrigerator, the door packing 260 provided on theperiphery of the door is removed. In order to keep intimate contact atthe time of closing the door, a plastic type magnet is built into thisdoor packing 260 and the magnet is a difficult-to-crush substance andalso the door packing itself is vinyl chloride regarded as anenvironmental impact substance, so that removal is required. Via themanual scrapping disposal described above, it is put into the crushingmachine used in the final process (S005 of FIG. 1). The refrigeratorresidual portions after the manual disassembling process are put intothe crushing machine one by one as they are. In the refrigerator crushedby the crushing machine, raw materials are sorted by a sorting machineand material can be taken out every raw material and the raw materialsare recycled (S006 of FIG. 1).

As shown in FIG. 21( a), a recyclable mark 300 and a material code 310are together described to the plastic recyclable component as mentionedabove and in this case, it is best desirable to describe the materialcode 310 in the vicinity of the recyclable mark 300 for recognition.However, when there is a space problem or a pattern is not good, asshown in FIG. 17 b, a method for describing the material code 310 in aposition axisymmetrical to the recyclable mark 300 may also be usedsince recognition is maintained. Also, when description of the mark andthe code to the plastic component is previously engraved on a metal moldfor molding of the plastic component, transfer to the component can beperformed at the time of molding of the component. This is veryeconomical since extra cost other than cost for engraving on the metalmold is not required. Also, as shown in FIGS. 22( a) and 22(b), it ismore desirable to describe these mark 300 and code 310 by a convexcharacter since there is an advantage that a worker is aware of thedescription by making contact with a finger at the time of manualscrapping in addition to recognition by a visual check. For an opaquecomponent, this convex character is constructed so as to be a correctcharacter on the front side of the component as shown in FIG. 22( a).Also, for a transparent component, it is more desirable to construct theconvex character so as to be a correct character on the back side of thecomponent when viewed from the front as shown in FIG. 18 b since wear ordirt due to food is not caused. By the description of the recyclablemark and the material code in combination as mentioned above, the manualscrapping disposal becomes clear and separation by material can berecognized at a glance and efficiency of the manual scrapping disposalimproves considerably.

In an example of the air conditioner or the refrigerator, a Mobius loopin conformance with ISO14021 is used as the recyclable mark 100, but amark defined independently may be used. Also, as a product to which amark is attached, it can be applied to all-round home electricappliances such as a washing machine, a television, a cleaner, amicrowave oven, a video or a small device as well as the air conditionerand the refrigerator. When a size of the mark is too small, it isdifficult to recognize the mark, so that one side of the mark isdesirably 7 mm or more. In an example of the air conditioner or therefrigerator, the X mark is used as a mark indicating a component whichmay cause trouble in the case of being put into the crushing machine,but other marks may be used as shown in FIG. 3. Also, as a product towhich a mark is attached, it can be applied to all-round home electricappliances such as a washing machine, a television as well as the airconditioner and the refrigerator, and in addition to the componentsdescribed in the example, a deflecting yoke or a cathode-ray tube of atelevision, a large-scale electrolytic capacitor, etc. are this displayobject.

In an example of the air conditioner or the refrigerator, the X mark isused as a mark indicating a component made of raw material having aninfluence on environment, but other marks may be used as shown in FIG.3. Also, as a product to which a mark is attached, it can be applied toall-round home electric appliances such as a washing machine, atelevision as well as the air conditioner and the refrigerator, and inaddition to the control board including lead described in the example, abalancer of a washing machine using salt water, a battery or the likeincluding mercury or lead, etc., a flame-resistant plastic moldedcomponent including a specific bromine group flame retardant like aswitch box, etc. are this display object. In an example of the airconditioner or the refrigerator, the ★ mark is used as a mark indicatingthat rare metal is included, but other marks may be used as shown inFIG. 3( j). Also, as a product to which a mark is attached, it can beapplied to all-round home electric appliances such as a washing machine,a television as well as the air conditioner and the refrigerator, and athermoelectric element etc. are this display object. In the case ofmanually scrapping an electric appliance, it is important that a coveror an outer enclosure to which a difficult-to-crush substance or anenvironmental impact substance is attached is first removed and aninfluence is not had on recycling, and it is constructed so that thesetrouble substances are easy to remove on product design, so thatdisposal can be performed in a shorter time. Thereafter, since it isconstructed so that valuable substances such as components containingrare metal are easy to remove, when these components are disposed of andsubsequently plastics or the like are manually scrapped in considerationof scrapping time, recovery producing money can be made. Metal or thelike can be simply recovered even by mechanical crushing, so that aprofit and loss balance is minimized in disposal by machine.

As described above, in the case of recovering and recycling an electricappliance, a mark is attached to a previously removed component and thecomponent is distinguished from another component and thereby at thetime of manual disassembling work before being put into a crushingmachine, a removal place and a kind of the component become clear anddisposal cost can be decreased and a component returning the valuableamount can be collected at the minimum disposal cost. In the previouslyremoved component, accumulated transition of value of the removedcomponent is shown with respect to a lapse of time taken for removal andis compared with time work cost of a previous removal process andthereby an object component is previously selected at a design stage, sothat extra removal work is not done and improvement in disposal cost canbe made. The previously removed component includes a component which maycause trouble in the case of being put into the crushing machine and amark is attached to its component, so that a removal place becomes clearand trouble with the crushing machine can be prevented. The previouslyremoved component includes a component made of raw material having aninfluence on environment and a mark is attached to its component, sothat a removal place becomes clear and omission of disposal of anenvironmental impact substance is prevented and improvement inenvironment can be made.

In the previously removed component, a mark is attached to a componenthaving rare metal, so that a removal place becomes clear and thevaluable amount can be returned by collecting the rare metal. All of theplastic molded components in which material recycling is performed canbe removed by the same method, so that workability at the time ofscrapping improves. A raw material of the plastic molded component inwhich the material recycling is performed is any of polypropylene,polystyrene, high impact type modified polystyrene andacrylonitrile-butadiene-styrene copolymer, and general material is used,so that material separation and recyclability improve. A markrepresenting recyclability and a material code are together attached tothe plastic molded component in which the material recycling isperformed, and thereby purity at the time of separating recycledsubstances improves. The material code is displayed in the vicinity ofthe recyclable mark or in a position axisymmetrical to the recyclablemark, so that separation work efficiency of recycled substancesimproves. The mark representing recyclability and the material code aredescribed by a convex character with respect to a component, so thatseparation work efficiency of recycled substances improves. The convexcharacter of the mark representing recyclability and the material codeis desirably described in a direction capable of reading as a correctcharacter on the front side of a component for an opaque component andreading as a correct character on the back side of a component whenviewed from the front for a transparent component. An object componentlist of the previously removed component or an instruction diagram of adisassembling procedure is displayed or recorded in a predeterminedplace of a product or a predetermined specific component, so thatscrapping work efficiency improves.

As described above, a recovery method of an electric appliance of thisinvention comprises the steps of displaying a mark or a symbol to amanually scrapped component capable of being disassembled by a tool ormanually without disassembling or crushing by machine at the time ofdiscard or recovery after use, scrapping the manually scrapped componentfrom a product by a tool or manually before disassembling or crushing bymachine at the time of discard or recovery after use, and crushing theresidual product by machine after scrapping the manually scrappedcomponent, and display of the mark or the symbol is a mark or a symbolcapable of separation into plural kinds of substance on which a costburden is imposed and valuable substance after recovery, so thatscrapping can be performed easily at low cost.

Also, in a recovery method of an electric appliance, in a mark or asymbol capable of separation into plural kinds, a mark or a symbol isattached to at least any of a trouble component damaging a crushingmachine, a trouble component including a substance causing an obstacleto a run of a machine and a trouble component including a substancehaving a bad influence on environment, and also another mark or symbolis attached to any of a component including a substance having recoveryvalue and a valuable recycled component, so that recycling business canbe done effectively.

Also, in a recovery method of an electric appliance, scrapping of amanually scrapped component to which a mark or a symbol is displayed isscrapping of a component to specified scrapping order or a componentwithin specified time, so that useless work can be eliminated to doefficient recycling business.

Also, in a recovery method of an electric appliance, a position of amanually scrapped component or specified scrapping order or scrappingtime in the case of scrapping the manually scrapped component to which amark or a symbol is displayed are preset and also setting of this setposition or order or time can be changed by communication means or inputmeans, so that flexible recycling business can be done while viewing aprofit and loss balance.

Also, a recovery method of an electric appliance comprises the steps ofpresetting and displaying plural kinds of manually scrapped componentscapable of being disassembled by a tool or manually withoutdisassembling or crushing by machine at the time of discard or recoveryafter use, scrapping the manually scrapped components from a product bya tool or manually before disassembling or crushing by machine at thetime of discard or recovery after use, and performing crushing bymachine after scrapping the manually scrapped components, and thedisplay is performed on a display device provided in an electricappliance by reading from storage means or receiving information fromthe outside through communication means, so that easy and simple workcan be done.

Also, a recovery method of an electric appliance comprises the steps ofdisplaying a manually scrapped component capable of being disassembledby a tool or manually without disassembling or crushing by machine atthe time of discard or recovery after use on a preset display device,scrapping the manually scrapped component from a product by a tool ormanually before disassembling or crushing by machine at the time ofdiscard or recovery after use, and performing crushing by machine afterscrapping the manually scrapped component, and setting of display of thedisplay device can be changed by communication means or input means, sothat easy scrapping work capable of being adapted to any recycling fieldcan be done.

Also, a recovery method of an electric appliance comprises the steps ofsetting time for scrapping a manually scrapped component capable ofbeing disassembled by a tool or manually without disassembling orcrushing by machine at the time of discard or recovery after use,providing notification of arrival at scrapping time preset beforescrapping during scrapping of the manually scrapped component, andperforming crushing by machine after scrapping the manually scrappedcomponent, and setting of the scrapping time set can be changed bycommunication means or input means, so that recovery at low cost can bemade independently of a time difference between a point in time ofdesign and a point in time of discard of the electric appliance.

Also, a scrapping evaluation method of this invention comprises thesteps of presetting scrapping time of plural kinds of manually scrappedcomponents capable of being disassembled by a tool or manually inside astructure of a product, presetting the value amounts of the plural kindsof the manually scrapped components, obtaining accumulation of the valueamounts of the plural manually scrapped components with a scrapping timelapse of scrapping the product in order, and performing display ornotification so as to set and change a kind or a position or a count ora scrapping procedure of a manually scrapped component so that theaccumulation of the value amounts every scrapping time lapse reaches apredetermined value amount in an early time before the preset scrappingtime or the accumulation of the value amounts every scrapping time lapseresults in accumulation or more of a target value amount in apredetermined scrapping time, so that a product can be separated at lowcost.

Also, a scrapping evaluation method comprises the steps of presettingscrapping time of plural kinds of manually scrapped components capableof being disassembled by a tool or manually inside a structure of aproduct, presetting the value amounts of the plural kinds of themanually scrapped components, obtaining accumulation of the valueamounts of the plural manually scrapped components with a scrapping timelapse of the product, and accumulating the value amounts every scrappingtime lapse to decide whether or not this scrapping time and valueamounts are smaller than the value amount to the preset scrapping timeor are later than scrapping time to the preset value amount, so thatrecycling business with a clear profit and loss balance can be done.

Also, a scrapping evaluation method comprises a step capable of settingand changing a kind or a position or a count or a scrapping procedure ofa manually scrapped component when scrapping time and the value amountare smaller than the value amount to scrapping time preset or are laterthan scrapping time to the value amount preset, so that a profit andloss balance can be improved.

Also, a scrapping evaluation method comprises a step of displayingscrapping time and the value amount after change while setting andchange can be made by input means or communication means, so thatflexible scrapping evaluation can be made.

Also, a scrapping evaluation method comprises a step of providingnotification of a change in a product structure so as to change a kindor a position or a count or a scrapping procedure of a manually scrappedcomponent when the value amount to scrapping time is smaller than thevalue amount to scrapping time preset or is later than scrapping time tothe value amount preset, so that profit and loss can be improved surely.

Also, a scrapping evaluation method comprises the steps of presettingscrapping time of plural kinds of manually scrapped components capableof being disassembled by a tool or manually inside a structure of aproduct, presetting the value amounts of the plural kinds of themanually scrapped components, obtaining accumulation of the valueamounts of the plural manually scrapped components with a scrapping timelapse of the product, and accumulating the value amounts every scrappingtime lapse to display the value amounts to this accumulated scrappingtime and cost necessary for the scrapping time preset, so that an easyscrapping evaluation method can be obtained.

Also, a scrapping evaluation method comprises a step of providingnotification of a change in a product structure so as to change a kindor a position or a count or a scrapping procedure of a manually scrappedcomponent in the case of deciding that the value amount to scrappingtime is smaller than cost to scrapping time preset, so that profit andloss can be improved surely.

Also, in an electric appliance of this invention, in the case ofrecovering a product after use, according to disposal of recovery,plural kinds of marks are attached to a component removed previously bya tool or manually before crushing by machine or are stored by differentsymbols in storage means provided in the product and the component isdistinguished from other components, so that an easy-to-separate productcan be obtained.

Also, in a previously removed component of an electric appliance,accumulated transition of value of the removed component is obtainedwith respect to a lapse of time taken for removal and is compared withtime work cost of a previous removal process and thereby an objectcomponent is determined, so that a product capable of being separated atlow cost can be obtained.

Also, a previously removed component of an electric appliance includes atrouble component which may cause trouble in the case of being put intoa crushing machine, or a trouble component made of raw material havingan influence on environment, or a valuable component with value ofpresence of rare metal etc., or a plastic component and also, a mark ora symbol indicating trouble is attached to the trouble component and amark or a symbol indicating value is attached to the valuable component,so that a product with clear profit and loss of recycling can beobtained.

Also, a plastic component among previously removed components of anelectric appliance can be removed by the same method, for example, thesame removal direction, so that a product capable of being separated ina short time can be obtained.

Also, a raw material of a plastic component among previously removedcomponents of an electric appliance is any of polypropylene,polystyrene, high impact type modified polystyrene andacrylonitrile-butadiene-styrene copolymer, and a mark or a symbolrepresenting recyclability and a material code are together described toa plastic component of an electric appliance of the present inventionaccording to claim 20, so that the plastic can be separated in a shorttime.

Also, in an electric appliance, a material code is described in thevicinity of a mark representing recyclability or in a positionaxisymmetrical to the mark, so that separation can be performed quickly.

Also, a mark representing recyclability of an electric appliance and amaterial code are described by a convex or concave character withrespect to a component and this convex or concave character is describedin a direction capable of reading as a correct character on the frontside of a component for an opaque component and reading as a correctcharacter on the front side of a component or a correct character on theback side of a component when viewed from the front for a transparentcomponent, so that even a product after discard can be read speedily.

Also, in an electric appliance, an object component list of a previouslyremoved component and an instruction diagram of this manualdisassembling procedure are displayed or stored in a predetermined placeof a product or a predetermined specific component, so that aneasy-to-scrap product can be obtained. Also, in the case of opening acover or the like covering a surface of an electric appliance of thepresent invention according to claim 24, a difficult-to-crush substanceand an environmental impact substance or components to which thedifficult-to-crush substance and the environmental impact substance aremounted are exposed, so that manual scrapping in a short time can beperformed.

Also, an information system of an electric appliance of this inventioncomprises design input means which can input structure design of theelectric appliance and also can preset plural kinds of manually scrappedcomponents capable of being disassembled by a tool or manually, thecomponents being partial components of this structure, storage means forpreviously storing raw material unit prices of the plural manuallyscrapped components and scrapping time every component, and displaymeans for displaying accumulation of value amounts of manuallydisassembled components with a manual scrapping time lapse of theelectric appliance from component information about plural componentswhich can be manually disassembled and are inputted from the designinput means and information stored in the storage means, and the designinput means, the storage means and the display means are connectedthrough communication means, so that a system in which necessary workcan be done anywhere and a product is easy to recycle can be obtained.

Also, in an information system of an electric appliance, in the case ofdiscarding an electric appliance, a range of a manually scrappedcomponent can be changed and also information stored can be updated, sothat an easy-to-use system independent of a point in time of design anda point in time of discard can be obtained.

Also, a recovery apparatus of an electric appliance of this inventioncomprises set value input means for presetting scrapping time of pluralkinds of manually scrapped components capable of being disassembled by atool or manually inside a structure of an electric appliance and alsopresetting value amounts of the plural kinds of the manually scrappedcomponents, calculation means for obtaining accumulation of valueamounts of the plural manually scrapped components with a scrapping timelapse of the appliance, and display means for displaying or recording toprovide notification that scrapping cannot be performed within thepreset scrapping time by accumulation of the value amounts every thescrapping time lapse, so that an apparatus capable of making profit andloss of recycling business clear can be obtained.

Also, a recovery apparatus of an electric appliance comprises settingmeans for presetting scrapping time for manually scrapping plural kindsof manually scrapped components capable of being disassembled by a toolor manually without disassembling or crushing by machine at the time ofdiscarding an electric appliance or recovering the electric applianceafter use, display means capable of displaying kinds, positions, countsor scrapping procedures of the manually scrapped components by readingfrom the setting means or reading from storage means provided in theelectric appliance or receiving information from the outside throughcommunication means, and timer means for measuring work time forscrapping the plural kinds of manually scrapped components displayed bythe display means and also providing notification of time of the presetscrapping time, so that scrapping can be performed at low cost.

Also, a recovery apparatus of an electric appliance comprises time valuerecord means for recording value amounts of manually scrapped componentsof plural kinds preset as the accumulated amount with a scrapping timelapse, so that an apparatus with a clear profit and loss balance can beobtained.

Also, a recovery apparatus of an electric appliance comprises scrappingtime record means for recording scrapping time of manually scrappedcomponents of plural kinds preset, so that a recovery apparatuseffective at any point in time can be obtained.

Also, in a recovery apparatus of an electric appliance, setting means ordisplay means or time value record means or scrapping time record meanscan make setting or display or recording remotely through acommunication system, so that profit and loss can be grasped in the caseof scrapping anywhere.

Also, a scrapping evaluation apparatus of this invention comprises setvalue input means for presetting scrapping time of plural kinds ofmanually scrapped components capable of being disassembled by a tool ormanually inside a structure of a product and also presetting the valueamounts of the plural kinds of the manually scrapped components,calculation means for obtaining accumulation of the value amounts of theplural manually scrapped components with a scrapping time lapse of theproduct, and display means for accumulating the value amounts everyscrapping time lapse and displaying a relation between the value amountsto this scrapping time and cost to the scrapping time preset, so thatprofit and loss evaluation of recycling is simplified.

Also, a scrapping evaluation apparatus comprises design input means forchanging a drawing of a product so as to set and change a kind or acount or a scrapping procedure of a manually scrapped component whencost to scrapping time is higher than the value amount, so that discardcost can be reduced at a point in time of design.

INDUSTRIAL APPLICABILITY

As described above, the present invention contributes or is applied toscrapping work or separation work at the time of discard of electricappliances such as used home electric appliances.

1. A recovery method for an electric appliance, comprising: removing acomponent from the electric appliance; obtaining information from astorage medium corresponding to the component, said informationincluding a value of materials forming the component or costs associatedwith disposing of the component, and a standard scrapping cost per unittime; determining a time required to remove the component from theelectric appliance; and determining an accumulated profit or loss basedon the time to remove the component, the standard scrapping cost perunit time, and the value of materials forming the component or costsassociated with disposing of the component.
 2. The method of claim 1,wherein the determining a time required to remove the componentcomprises: using a timer to determine the time required to remove thecomponent.
 3. The method of claim 2, further comprising: turning on thetimer by detecting a state in which the electric appliance is in apredetermined position.
 4. The method of claim 1, further comprising:displaying the accumulated profit or loss.
 5. The method of claim 1,further comprising: comparing the accumulated profit or loss and thetime required to remove the component with a predetermined target profitor loss and a predetermined target time, respectively; obtaining a newprocedure for removing the component from the electrical appliance; anddetermining an amount of money that can be made if the new procedure isimplemented.
 6. The method of claim 5, further comprising: modifying thepredetermined target time.